Google's quantum computer runs 100 million times faster than traditional computers

What? Google's own quantum computer is 100 million times faster than traditional computers. How did this D-Wave do it?

On December 9, according to the technology website VentureBeat, Google's Quantum Artificial Intelligence Lab announced today that in two tests, the D-Wave 2X quantum computer ran 100 million times faster than a simulated device running on a traditional computer chip. D-Wave 2X is a quantum computer equipped by the Quantum Artificial Intelligence Lab jointly created by Google, NASA and the Universities Space Research Association.

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D-Wave 2X quantum computer

“We found that quantum computers outperformed classical computers by more than 100 million times on problems involving nearly 1,000 binary variables,” Hartmut Neven, Google’s head of engineering, said in a blog post today discussing the results. “We also compared D-Wave 2X to a Quantum Monte Carlo algorithm, which simulates the operation of a quantum computer but runs on a classical chip, and sometimes ran 100 million times faster.”

Vern Brownell, CEO of quantum computer manufacturer D-Wave, is very happy about this. Needless to say, a quantum computer running 100 million times faster than a traditional chip is obviously a remarkable achievement, which will help D-Wave attract more customers.

Google has its own quantum computing hardware lab, but its quantum computing hardware project is still in its early stages. John Martinis, head of Google's hardware project, said, "I would say that it's really hard to produce a quantum computer, so we first want to make it work properly, regardless of its cost, size or other factors."

The commercial application of quantum computers may not be achieved overnight, but it will eventually speed up some tasks such as image recognition. Quantum computers can also be used for traditional tasks, such as data cleaning. David Bell, director of the Advanced Computational Science Institute of the American University Space Research Association, said that the high speed of quantum computing can also be used to improve planning and scheduling and air traffic management.